Total pages in book: 70
Estimated words: 66732 (not accurate)
Estimated Reading Time in minutes: 334(@200wpm)___ 267(@250wpm)___ 222(@300wpm)
Estimated words: 66732 (not accurate)
Estimated Reading Time in minutes: 334(@200wpm)___ 267(@250wpm)___ 222(@300wpm)
I feel tears slide down my face. They get swallowed up by the mask. Is it true? The house is gone? Did Silas really do what they’re saying he did?
My knees bend, my head droops onto his shoulder. He holds me upright.
“Stay with me,” he says. “Just a little longer.” The dance is coming to an end, and people are making way as we move toward the stage where I see Mira and Ethan ascending the stairs. Once we get there, Sly leans in as if to hug me. “You will stay away from Silas Cruz, or there will be consequences that will make tonight look like a child’s game.” He draws back, grins. “Am I perfectly clear, dear?”
He looks down at me and I hear the murmurs around us of how he treats me like his own daughter, how generous given what happened, what my father did.
“Am I?” he prods.
I nod because I need this over. I’m going to pass out. I want to pass out. I want oblivion.
“Good girl,” he says and somehow, we ascend the stairs. Ethan wraps his arm around me. Sly makes a joke about handing me any more champagne. He announces our engagement to the sound of cheers as everyone in the room raises their glasses to toast our engagement.
21
SILAS
“We’ll be filing charges,” Nigella throws over her shoulder as we walk out of the police station as dusk falls. “You had no right to hold him for three days without a single charge.”
“Ma’am, we were conducting—”
“Bullshit.” She stops and turns. “Start packing up your desk, detective. I’ll have your job for this.”
I walk quickly out of the station and into the parking lot where Nigella’s car is double parked at the front doors.
“I can’t believe what they were able to get away with,” Nigella seethes. She’s been trying to see me for three days, trying to understand what the hell was going on.
“Welcome to Sinistral. That’s the kind of influence Fox wields.” I’d become complacent over the years. I’d forgotten what he is capable of. That was my fault. But never again. “I need to get her,” I say, holding out my hand. “Give me the keys.”
“No.”
I look down at her, surprised. “Give me the keys, Nigella.”
“You’re in no state to drive.”
“I need to fucking get to her.”
She shakes her head and stomps off to the driver’s side, unlocking the car and getting in. Irritated, I get into the passenger seat.
“Fine. Let’s go. I’ll give you directions to the Fox house.”
But she doesn’t even start the car. Instead, she turns to face me. “She’s gone, Silas.”
It takes me a minute. “What do you mean, gone?”
“Gone. Ethan left Sinistral with Ophelia the night of the gala. They’ve vanished. Sly is in Boston as of yesterday. Only Mira Fox is at the house. Hamish is in Boston, and we’re tracking Sly. I have another man stationed near the Fox house in Sinistral.”
“What the hell do you mean she’s gone?”
“Just what I said. I’m sure they’ll turn up. Either way, you can’t go near her.”
“Like hell I can’t.”
“Thought you’d say that,” she says and starts the car.
“Where the fuck are we going?”
“I’ll explain at the hotel. You need a shower, and we need to talk.”
“Talk now,” I tell her.
She starts to drive, turning onto the main road and heading toward the hotel. “There’s a restraining order against you. They’re also insinuating you forced yourself on Ophelia.”
“What?”
“I don’t know what the fuck I witnessed that night, but I’ve never seen anything like it. This town,” she shakes her head. “I don’t know. But I will tell you one thing, I have a feeling they’ll use that to force your hand. A charge of rape is not something you can walk away from so easily.”
“Rape? I didn’t… Fuck, I wouldn’t, and Ophelia would never say I did.” I look ahead at the road, thinking about Ophelia now. Where is she? Where did they take her? What did they do to her after I was gone?
Nigella navigates the narrow, icy lanes. A new storm is brewing. I feel it in my bones. Hear it in the whistling wind.
I’ve been held at the local jail without a phone call or any contact with anyone apart from the junior officer delivering my meals. No charges were filed, and no one said a single fucking word to me, so I have no fucking clue what’s going on or what went on after I was dragged out in handcuffs.
When we get to The Sinistral, Nigella drives around back. “What are you doing?”
“You feel like chatting with reporters?”
“Are you serious?”
She nods.
Christ. Once Nigella parks the car, we climb out and walk toward the doors.
“Did she say that? That I forced her?”
Nigella’s brow is furrowed, and I know she’s choosing her words carefully. She’s careful not to look at me as we enter the hotel. “I don’t think she was in a state to say or do much, Silas.”